The Red Line

by John Nichol

  In the middle of this smoke-filled chaos, Sam and his crew were handed their flying rations: chocolate, sweets, sandwiches or an orange, with a flask of tea or hot chocolate for warmth.

  Once dressed and ready, rations packed, they trudged off to collect their parachutes. Each man was responsible for his own harness, but the parachutes had to be signed out before flying and back in after the flight. They were serviced, packed and handed out by WAAFs, who also checked the dinghies and Mae West life jackets the crews would need if they were forced to ditch at sea. ‘It was all rather nerve-racking, particularly when you saw how large the parachutes were,’ says Liz Bond, a WAAF in the parachute packing section. ‘It had to be put in a small bag correctly, as it might save a man’s life.’40

  As the last friendly faces the crews would see before take-off, Liz and her colleagues developed a strong bond with the airmen. She had an autograph book which she asked the men to sign when they returned their equipment. One ‘cheeky little cockney’ called Peter Booth wrote: ‘Thanks for some of the best moments of my life, spent with you and the gang of the para section. I go, I come back.’ He went missing on the next op he flew.

  Clutching their ’chutes, Sam and his crew were finally ready to be taken out by truck to dispersal, where G-George stood vast and silent, silhouetted against the night sky.

  Like Ron Butcher, Roger Coverley was based at Linton-on-Ouse near York. These short trips on the ‘meat wagon’ were always the same, as far as he was concerned. He was an officer and had already completed a full tour, but seized the opportunity to step in when the pilot of an inexperienced crew was branded LMF.

  Roger was delighted to be back in the front seat, and the crew was delighted to have an experienced hand at the controls. He treated them all to lunch at one of York’s best hotels after every op. Some army officers Roger met frowned upon such fraternisation with the ranks, but he ignored them; in his opinion rank ceased to have any significance once they were off duty.

  By the time they were on their way to dispersal, the usual black humour abounded.

  ‘If you get the chop tonight, can I have that pair of slippers you keep in your locker?’

  ‘OK.’

  ‘Can I have that in writing?’

  An IOU was swiftly penned.

  Roger was happy to encourage this kind of banter among his crew. There was no point dwelling on their fate. ‘The attitude was rather like a game of rugger – you might get knocked over and knocked out, but you’d pick yourself up again. Nobody wanted to let anybody down. We were more terrified of being branded as LMF than of being shot down.’

  Once they had swapped messages of good luck with the others on board the lorry, they were dropped at dispersal. Their usual Halifax was unserviceable that night, so they had been given a replacement. It belonged to the Squadron Commander and was known to the men as The Royal Barge. Roger gazed admiringly at its sleek lines, thinking, I hope I don’t bring it back with any holes in it.

  The time between arriving at dispersal and boarding the aircraft was more solemn for Ray Francis, a flight engineer, at Mildenhall. His crew had endured a torrid introduction to life in Bomber Command since becoming operational in February. By the end of March they were survivors of raids on Leipzig, Schweinfurt, Stuttgart and Frankfurt. Their experiences had bound them ‘closer than any family’.

  One afternoon they had been sitting on the grass at dispersal, waiting for the signal to board from flying control. ‘The usual jokes and light-hearted chat began to dry up.’ Each of them had been pulling up daisies from the damp ground and threading them into chains. There was complete silence.

  ‘This is bloody silly,’ one of them said, flinging his flowers into the wind.

  Ray looked down and realised that they had been making their own wreaths. He followed suit, and then they all did. The banter and off-colour jokes returned, a crucial part of any crew’s attempts to remain sane. Ray’s contained three Australians, who liked to bewitch their Pommy mates with stories of bronzed, long-limbed Sheilas parading on the sun-kissed Sydney beaches. It took Ray and the others a while to discover that not one of the threesome had even visited the place. Still, the images they had conjured up were nice to cling to in the middle of an arduous English winter.

  Scouse Nugent continued to feel pessimistic. The thoughts that accompanied every mission crowded his mind. Will our crew be the lucky ones? Is this it? Will I ever see my wife again? It all came down to one simple question: Will I live or die? He could tell the rest of his crew was thinking the same way; the atmosphere had become quiet and tense. No one said a word as they gathered at their aircraft.

  Some of the boys took this chance to exchange a few words with their ground crews, for many the unsung heroes of Bomber Command. Men like Eric Howell, whose job it was to service, maintain and prepare the Halifax and Lancaster squadrons up and down the country and keep them flying at any cost. Eric was based at Dunholme Lodge in Lincolnshire and had been servicing bombers since 1942. His day had started at 7 a.m., when he made the first checks on the aircraft in his care. A full three-hour inspection followed, which would not finish until the crews were safely up in the air. In his two years he had spoken with many crews, struck up good friendships with most of them, and suffered the anguish of not seeing them return.

  No matter how many times he heard it, his pulse always quickened at the sound of the bombers revving up at dispersal, and the throb of a heavily laden Lancaster reverberating through the night air. He had once sat in the NAAFI when the planes took off; cups, glasses, doors and windows rattled and shook in time with the beat of the Merlin engines. Then came the strange silence as the red and green navigation lights faded to black, before the everyday sounds of the base asserted themselves once more – the hoot of an owl, the bark of a dog or a wireless blaring from one of the billets.

  In warmer weather, Eric would stretch out on the grass and watch the crews depart. ‘Can you imagine? Lying amongst the sweet-smelling grass and clover, peering through the distractions of the low overhanging branches of a massive old English oak at the silhouette of a Lancaster in the moonlit distance, knowing that hundreds of miles to the east death and destruction was taking place.’41

  As the aircrew truck loomed out of the darkness, the ground crew would extinguish their cigarettes, remove the giant oilskin covers that protected the aircraft wheels and give the Perspex in the cockpits and turrets a final polish.

  There was some conversation before take-off, but rarely about the matter at hand. They would help the crew, clad in their bulky flying gear, on board, and then take away the ladders and finally close the doors and hatches as the engines coughed into life. One of the ground crew scrambled along the now cramped, crowded aircraft and asked the pilot to sign the 700S, the aircraft’s engineering and serviceability log. Finally, on the pilot’s signal, the chocks were removed and the aircraft moved slowly away.

  After take-off, when Eric was on duty, he would go to the dispersal hut and wait an anxious, fitful seven hours, hoping and praying that those good men might return the next morning. The night of 30 March was no different. Eric waved off 16 crews, including one brand new Lancaster, C-Charlie, piloted by Trevor Charlesworth. Eric had lost three such aircraft since the beginning of 1944, an average of one a month, and he didn’t want to lose another. Back in the hut they stoked up the stove to create a warm fug, and settled down for their vigil. The next day was Eric’s birthday; he wanted to see as many of his Lancasters and his lads as possible make it back, and preferably all of them.

  Jack Watson, a member of the Pathfinder force for the operation, was one of the first to take to the sky that night. He had become increasingly preoccupied with the aircraft he was assigned to fly, M-Mother, and decided that the omens were not good. M was the 13th letter of the alphabet; this was to be their 13th trip, and the business end of the op would be taking place on the 31st, the inverse of 13.

  During these last moments on the ground, before the orders came throu
gh for take-off, superstition was quick to take hold. While most crews recognised the importance of preparation, training and vigilance, even the best and most experienced were aware that sheer good fortune often played the most crucial role in the unfolding drama. Many put their trust in keepsakes and charms, or went through often elaborate rituals to try and keep Lady Luck on their side.

  Reg Payne’s crew gave their aircraft a careful pat before they climbed aboard and whispered their wife’s or girlfriend’s name. Frank Swinyard, the navigator, would say ‘Good old Brenda,’ and Reg would follow with ‘Good old Ena,’ and so on. After every completed op, when the engines were shut down after landing, the voices of the crew would sing out the same mantra over the intercom. They believed it was the aircraft that helped preserve their lives and would continue to ensure their safety.

  Reg made particularly sure to give the plane a pat that night. He had been unsettled by the briefing, and not just because the raid was due to go ahead despite the moonlight. At the conclusion of his address, the Wing Commander would normally single out a crew member to come to the front and recite its most significant details. Unless he could do so accurately, he would be scrubbed from the op. That night he had simply bid them goodbye and good luck; they obviously needed all the crews they could muster for Nuremberg, whether attentive or not.

  Ray Francis’s charm was a lucky whistle. Every crew member carried one, in case they had to ditch in water and call for help in darkness, but his wasn’t RAF issue; it was a boy scout’s whistle, even though he had never been a boy scout. He also carried a silver bracelet given to him by his dad, engraved with the words: ‘Happy Landings, Father’.

  Alan Payne had a St Christopher. Like Chick Chandler, Alan’s skipper Geoff Probert wore a lucky scarf. He had been warming their aircraft’s engines before one op when he suddenly realised he didn’t have it, so he climbed out, got on his motorbike, shot back to the billet and returned, scarf in place, only seconds before take-off.

  Dick Starkey had a pair of miniature flying boots, which he used to stand above his instrument panel. He knew deep down that they didn’t bring him the slightest bit of luck, but had reached the stage where he didn’t dare risk leaving them behind. Their mere presence gave him reassurance.

  Andy Wiseman always took a doll knitted by his girlfriend Jean; he hung it from one of the pilot’s instruments. Some months earlier, he and his crew had stretched out in front of their plane to enjoy a last cigarette before take-off. The Station Commander arrived to wish them luck. As the ‘L’ word left his lips, Andy suddenly remembered Jean’s doll.

  ‘What’s the matter with you?’ the Station Commander asked.

  Andy felt his cheeks burn. ‘Nothing.’ There was no way he was going to admit something like that to the old man.

  The Station Commander was having none of it. ‘Come on, what’s the matter with you?’

  In the end, Andy confessed.

  Without saying another word, the Station Commander got back in his jeep, drove to Andy’s billet and retrieved the doll from his locker. It was the last time he ever forgot her.

  Andy Wiseman

  Andy was the only member of Bomber Command for whom it was a return to Nuremberg. Before he and his family fled for Poland, he had been there on a school trip. He had no memories of the visit; perhaps just as well, given that he was going back to flatten it.

  He disliked the wait before take-off. Unlike the rest of the crew, as a bomb aimer he had no instruments or equipment to check once their bomb load had been winched into the bay and he had given one of the projectiles a gentle pat. For the rest of the time, he stood and smoked and chatted, always about the most trivial things. He looked upon this phase of the proceedings as a dry run for the way things would unfold once the op was underway. He would have to bide his time for seven hours, buffeted by flak, his life in peril, at the end of which his job would be all over in seven minutes. That night he had every reason to doubt whether he would be called into action at all. The red line that separated them from the target suddenly seemed impossibly thin.

  When he was six, Rusty Waughman had been forced by his mother to kneel by his bed and say his prayers. ‘Now I lay me down to sleep I pray the Lord my soul would keep. If I should die before I wake, I pray the Lord my soul would take.’ He had not even mumbled the words since, until he found himself doing so during one particularly perilous op when the flak was so thick ‘I could have got out and walked on it.’

  For the more religious amongst them, it often paid to keep their prayers to themselves. Rusty knew of one skipper who took a senior officer out over Germany. Their aircraft came under heavy fire from a night fighter. When the rear gunner shouted, ‘The bastards are everywhere!’ their guest replied, ‘Never fear, rear gunner, never fear – the Lord is with us.’

  ‘He might be up your fucking end,’ the gunner replied, ‘but there’s no sign of him back here.’

  The crews climbed into the Stygian gloom of their aircraft, hauling their kit and equipment with them, to complete their final checks. Hidden from sight by his curtain, Sam Harris unpacked his navigation gear and tested his instruments and lights. Everything was in working order.

  Then it was back outside for one final ritual. Sam’s crew gathered at the far side of the dispersal and reached for their smokes. Mac normally brandished a pipe, but on these occasions he always had a cigarette. Eric wouldn’t touch the things, but stood with them while they had their final nicotine fix. Take-off time was fast approaching. They formed a line at the edge of the tarmac, fought their way into their multi-layered flying suits and peed into the adjoining field.

  Some relieved themselves on the aircraft wheels for luck – and sometimes to hide their modesty from the well-wishers who had come to wave them off from dispersal, among them several members of the WAAF. Harry Evans and his crew had stopped doing so after they were told the urine might weaken the metallic undercarriage and cause it to collapse. It was a worry they could live without.

  By this time the thick cloud and gusting wind which had made the day so miserable appeared to have eased. The sky was now alarmingly clear. The conversation among the crews began to falter, leaving each man alone with his thoughts. A few anxious eyes turned from the heavens to the flight control tower, still half expecting to see the red light which would indicate that the decision had finally been taken to scratch the raid.

  The light turned green.

  It was time to go.

  The rain started to fall as the men scrambled aboard. The Lancaster and Halifax engines coughed into life as the chocks were removed from their wheels. All across a vast swathe of eastern England they lumbered out of their dispersal bays. The process began at the airfields of North Yorkshire, furthest away from the point where the stream was to assemble over the North Sea, then south to Lincolnshire and finally East Anglia. The taxiing aircraft formed a line of looming silhouettes as they trundled towards their runways and prepared for take-off. This would be the last chance for many of the crews to swap jokes, or idle chat; once they were airborne many of their skippers forbade any kind of conversation and reserved the intercom for important information only.

  The piercing cold had done little to deter the crowds who had gathered at the end of the runway to wave them off: WAAFs, ground crew, idle crews, anyone else on base who wanted to show their support – at Dunholme Lodge the station commander made it his duty to salute each aircraft as it left the ground. The departing crew might scour the faces in the crowd for a familiar or an unwelcome one. That morning, a flight sergeant from 50 Squadron at Skellingthorpe had been approached by a notorious ‘chop girl’ – the name given to those WAAFs who had dated more than one man who had gone missing on an op. After a brief chat he had beaten a hasty retreat but, as they made their turn at the end of the runway, he glanced across at the assembled onlookers and noticed, with a sense of dread, that she hadn’t taken no for an answer.

  In his bed near East Kirkby, Fred Panton listened to the sound o
f the bombers taking off from the airfield at the bottom of their hill. His father was a stickler for a punctual bedtime, and there was school tomorrow, so there was no chance he and Harold could run down to watch them take off this late. He lay snugly beneath his blankets, wondering what it would be like to lumber off into the darkness with a full bomb load. Was Chris going tonight? From the number of planes he’d heard take off, he guessed it was a big raid, so it was likely.

  Their father sat downstairs, as the last of the day’s fire crackled in the hearth. He had his own ritual: as soon as he heard the engines roar into life, he grabbed a piece of paper and put a mark for each aircraft he heard leave the ground. He would count them back in the next morning and compare the tallies.

  From the northernmost base, RAF Dishforth, in Yorkshire to the furthest south in Wrattling Common, Cambridgeshire, the night air was filled with the thunderous sound of the 795 aircraft − 572 Lancaster bombers, 214 Halifaxes and nine Mosquitoes. The 75 members of the Pathfinder Force carried amongst them 120 clusters of illuminating flares and 336 target indicator bombs, along with 116 skymarkers in case of dense cloud over the target. Each of the Lancasters in the main force was carrying one 4,000-pound ‘cookie’ bomb and somewhere between 5,000 and 6,000 pounds of incendiaries. Some of the Halifaxes carried a lighter but still potent bomb load, in order to leave room for extra fuel. They shuttled to the end of the runway, or stood in line, waiting for the green light to flash for take-off.

  Sam Harris and his crew had the privilege of being the first of their squadron to take off because G-George was setting out on her 100th trip. This would be their 10th operation together, and their early indifference to their aircraft had been replaced by great warmth. ‘It was slow and it was messy and battered, but we kept bringing it back. After the first trip the ground crew who looked after it were amazed, and more so after the second. A sort of esprit de corps grew between those who flew it and those who serviced and maintained it. The aircraft seemed to behave better and the ground crew would always be there to greet it, even if they had worked for 24 hours non-stop before it went and it came back in at some unseemly hour in the early morning.’